A US civil liberties panel, which was briefed on Tuesday about the United States Treasury's access to limited sets of SWIFT messages, concluded that SWIFT has put tight controls in place to protect data privacy.

The panel was impressed with the lengths to which SWIFT had gone to prevent infringement of people’s civil rights. SWIFT has reiterated numerous times that it had gone beyond its legal obligations to ensure it complied with all laws, whether in the US or EU.

SWIFT, which is caught between serious interpretation issues surrounding current US and EU laws, has called repeatedly for a global solution for providing financial intelligence for counter-terrorism purposes with adequate data protection safeguards.

Controls on Bank-Data Spying Impress Civil Liberties Board
November 29, 2006 — The New York Times

By Eric Lichtblau

A civil liberties panel appointed by the White House received a classified briefing Tuesday on the Bush administration’s program to monitor international banking transactions, and several members said they had come away impressed with the privacy controls in place to prevent abuses against Americans.

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